Thursday, 8th December 2022
Many central banks are studying, designing, prototyping, or rolling out retail CBDCs. Motivations differ significantly across jurisdictions, but there is one potential advantage that could be common to all cases.
If central banks agree on some basic technological foundations, retail CBDCs could interoperate and become a solution to cross-border retail payments. Is this an overlooked potential benefit of retail CBDCs?
We asked guests Simon Chantry (Co-founder & CIO, Bitt) and John Kiff (Head of CBDC/ Digital Captial Markets Advisory, Satoshi Capital Advisors), who joined session #12 of the CBDC Broadcast, to discuss.
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The session covered:
- Whether a CBDC could be a catalyst for responsible innovation in the digital economy and ensure interoperability with legacy and future payment solutions for cross-border payments
- The possibility of a CBDC crowding out other payment instruments
- Whether achieving full interoperability is likely if retail CBDCs are designed with local use in mind
- The factors determining if CBDCs could be interoperable
- How foreign exchanges issues typical of cross-border payments be solved via interoperable CBDCs
- The competitors of cross-border retail CBDCs- correspondent banking, stablecoins and cryptos or both
- Whether an FMI’s decision to provide interoperability between a CBDC with another form of money would be a commercial decision based on its business model
- Whether the type of CBDC issued to the market would impact the willingness of FMIs to provide interoperability
- The benefits cross-border retail CBDCs bring to the table
Watch on-demand:
Session #12 Guests
 | Simon Chantry Co-founder & CIO, Bitt Simon co-founded Bitt.com in 2014 and has held multiple roles with the firm including Director, COO, and CIO bringing the company’s Digital Currency Management System (DCMS) to market in 4Q 2017. The DCMS is now deployed across 3 continents with 5 unique digital national currencies, in CBDC and stablecoin formats. Simon is a global expert in the development of digital currency systems across borders. Simon is a member of the OECD’s Blockchain Expert Policy Advisory Board (BEPAB), and has been a featured blockchain and DLT expert, speaker, and panelist at numerous government, regulatory, and technology centred forums around the world. Simon is currently working to establish Central Bank Digital Currency standards and best practices to enable crucial privacy and accountability features, as well as interoperability and effective CBDC project collaboration and participation amongst international Central Banks. | |
 | John Kiff Head of CBDC/Digital Capital Markets Advisory, Satoshi Capital Advisors John is Head of CBDC/Digital Capital Markets Advisory at Satoshi Capital Advisers, and Advisor to Whisper Cash. He was a Senior Financial Sector Expert at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from 2005 to 2021. Prior to that, from 2005 to 2021, he was a Senior Financial Sector Expert at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Before that he was at the Bank of Canada for 25 years, where he spent most of his time managing the funding and investment of the government’s foreign exchange reserves, including running its interest rate and currency swap book. At the IMF he was part of the team that produces the semi-annual Global Financial Stability Report. More recently he has been focusing on fintech issues, digital currencies, OTC derivative market infrastructure, and longevity risk transfer markets. He is active on Twitter (@Kiffmeister) and blogs at the Kiffmeister Chronicles. |
Missed our previous sessions? Watch the series on-demand
 | 23rd February 2023 Project mBridge: Real-Value Transactions through a Cross-border CBDC Platform With: Daniel Eidan (Bank for International Settlements) & Ousmène Jacques Mendang (Accenture)
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 | 12th January 2023 Digital Currencies: Coexistence or Competition With: Catherine Gu (Visa) & Carmelle Cadet (EMTECH)
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 | 8th December 2022 CBDC Interoperability in Cross-border payments With: John Kiff (Satoshi Capital Advisors) & Simon Chantry (Bitt)
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 | 17th November 2022 CBDC Interoperability, Benefits and Implications- A U.S. Perspective With: Commissioner Hester M. Peirce (The U.S Securities and Exchange Commission) & Patrick McCarty (Georgetown University)
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 | 5th October 2022 Gaining Momentum: Options for access to and interoperability of CBDCs worldwide With: Anneke Kosse & Illaria Mattei (Bank for International Settlements)
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 | 29th September 2022 What CBDC features will drive consumers’ and merchants’ adoption? With: John Velissarios (Accenture) & Raoul Herborg (G+D)
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 | 10th August 2022 Aligning Technology and Policy: The Oliver Wyman Forum and Amazon Web Services (AWS) Report With: Larissa de Lima (Oliver Wyman Forum) & Erica Salinas (Amazon Web Services)
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 | 20th July 2022 CBDC Motivations and Challenges – A Perspective from Asia-Pacific With: Masaki Bessho (Bank of Japan) & Dr Steven Hu (Standard Chartered Bank)
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 | 30th June 2022 Central Banks and Private Money: The Past, Present and Future With: John Kiff (Satoshi Capital Advisors) & Harish Natarajan (The World Bank)
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 | 18th May 2022 CBDC Motivations and Challenges – A Perspective from Latin America With: Ludmilla Butueau Allien (Bank of the Republic of Haiti) & Dr Adolfo Sarmiento (Central Bank of Uruguay) |
 | 28th April 2022 CBDC Motivations and Challenges- A Perspective from the UK & Canada With: Dr Francisco Rivadeneyra (Bank of Canada) & Mehregan Ameri (Bank of England) |
 | 16th March 2022 HSBC & IBM’s Joint CBDC Project With: Mark Williamson (HSBC) & Soren Mortensen (IBM) |
 | 15th February 2022 Critical policy issues & Lessons Learned from UK and China With: Jean-Michel Godeffroy (JMG Consulting) & Keith Bear (University of Cambridge) |
 | 11th January 2022 Quantifying the Impact of CBDCs With: Dr Kimmo Soramäki (FNA) & Dr Carlos León (FNA) |